If you don't believe in a power higher than yourself, then what restrains you?

Question

What gives you a conscience, or helps you to avoid crossing a line that would take another's life without them first threatening your own life? Why do we want to help the homeless, or small children who are lost or abandoned? Where does this feeling of empathy come from and why don't we all just behave stone cold? Yet some are kind while others are not. Can this be explained?

Answer 1

...it's called morals.

Answer 2

It can't be explained easily if at all. But I believe humans are born innocent, not born into sin as some religions teach. As we go through life I think it fair to say our environment has a lot to do with our humanity...or lack of. Seeing the contrast between those that are kind and those that are cold supports my idea that conscience is taught and not inherent.
I learned the hard way not to jeopardize life, health, safety or property. I gave up drinking alcohol because it did alter my state of conscinous where I was a threat. I think drugs and alcohol affect whether you will be kind or cold.
Good question you've asked.

Answer 3

I think it has to do with how we were raised and treated as children. I AM an atheist, but do not treat others badly. I WAS an abused child and know how I felt, so why would I want to inflict pain on my children or any other? I have accomplished great things in my life, so in my way of thinking, my children should be able to do even more because they are being raised in a totally loving and supportive environment, unlike myself.

Answer 4

Wow, what an original question!

There is something higher than me, it's called the human community. If I choose to ignore it's mores and rules, I will be ostracized, abused, perhaps incarcerated. Get it?

Evolution also shows that any social animals are going to have a need to get along with each other that solitary animals will not have.

Answer 5

I believe in a higher power but I am not clear what restraint comes directly from Him or what come through natural principles built in. Having said this, I think we need to treasure the positive impulses that we have.

Answer 6

It is all because of empathy.

Compassion and consicious, morality and principal all extend from the concept of doing to others what you would want done to you.

I live life by the golden rule, not because I choose to, but because it just makes sense.

In a society the only way to survive is to work together. if you cant trust and rely on others then you will all perish.

Answer 7

I don't know what keeps me in line. I consider myself to be a very compassionate, caring, sypathetic person, but I have no religion or higher power. I guess it's just in all of us, since the cave man times, probably to build relationships to help with gathering food, etc. Great question!

Answer 8

Humans are social animals just like cows, pigs, goats, dogs or whatever.

And we all follow rules that allow our species to not only survive, but to survive & thrive.

It's called "natural selection" and Darwin wrote about a similar concept from a physical viewpoint.

Answer 9

i do! i gve myself restraint!

DUH!

seriously, society and bring raised by a parent (single) has given me enough common sense to know what is right and wrong. i dont need a 2000 year old book to know what right and wron is. especially since that book your baseyour norality on says its okay to murder cretain peoples.

i want to help the homeless because i dont like to see people suffering and having to beg. i have pity on them. pity is an emotion, it isnt learned from a book.

emotions, all emotions come from the internal not the external, youre basically saying that unless you beleive as YOU do then you cant have certain emotions.

neither your bible nor your god is a base for emotions or understanding. we have these thngs hard wired in us already, we dont learn them from an outside source. theyre enforced by outside sources.

Answer 10

OKay, so you follow the bible to get your morals? Don't claim this is the Old Testament because it is still God's word therefore just as significant and lawful as it was then. God's word should not change nor his teachings. If they do then he can't be all knowing and powerful.

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
-Albert Einstein


The Lovely Morals of the Bible:

"The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived. Even if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered." O LORD, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children." Hosea 9:11-16

"The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die." Samuel 12:11-14

You're god condoned war past or not it is in the bible which you believe in did god change his mind? Seems strange for a omni-perfect god huh?

"If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away from one end of the earearth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Deut.13:7-12

"So the LORD our God handed King Og and all his people over to us, and we killed them all. We destroyed all the people in every town we conquered men, women, and children alike. But we kept all the livestock for ourselves and took plunder from all the towns." Deut. 3:1-7

Lord says'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. Samuel 12:11-14

1 Tim 2:8-11 women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

You can be a Sex Slave too!

28: If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; 29: Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. Deuteronomy 22:28-29

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." Exodus 21:20-21

Answer 11

Basic morality... God has nothing to do with whether I think killing someone is wrong or not. I can feel pain, and I do not like it. Why should I cause pain to someone else, if I know how bad it feels? My parents, and not God, taught me that.